Accept Credit Cards on Your
Site
With an online merchant account, you can increase your sales simply by accepting credit
cards online.
Most of the online websites you see nowadays that sell products or services accept
credit cards - this combined with auction selling has made credit cards a multi billion
dollar industry. Read on and you'll discover how you can accept credit card
payments online yourself - it's not as difficult as it may first seem.
More and more people use their credit cards for online shopping - it's easy,
convenient and quickly becoming the standard form of payment. With a secure server, the
buyer feels more comfortable with the credit card transaction process and is more likely to
buy from you.
Choosing a Online Merchant Account Service
There are a lot
of credit card scams online these days, websites claiming to be large companies,
serving millions of customers. Do a Google search on the credit card company name and
domain and see what results come up and what other people have to say about the
company. People usually leave their comments about the companies in forums or their
websites which is accessible to Google and other Search Engines. If you are still not
sure about a company, do a WHOIS search of the company domain. And see if their
profile looks real enough to be trusted, you can do WHOIS search for free on
www.Whois.sc
Before opening an account in a credit card service, look at the company's rates. Some
companies are good for auctions, Some for subscriptions. You have to count the transaction
charges with your product price. If you are selling products online or selling on eBay,
then look at the companies where you have to pay a low percent charge and your buyer
doesn't have to pay a lot, like Paypal.
Paypal doesn't charge your buyers and has a very low charge for premium or business
accounts. Some sellers use Bidpay, A Western Union company which is trusted but is
designed for online auctions. Bidpay also has a very high charging rate for buyers which
might cause you to lose customers. If you have a very large budget and have more customers,
then 2Checkout is an optimal payment
system which accepts credit cards without any charges - but does not accept payments
from Paypal Accounts which might be a problem for some of your customers. (It's always a
wise idea to provide 2 or 3 payment services for your customers; this will increase your
sales.)
Service Availability
There are many companies which only
accept customers from specific countries, so always look at the availability of the
service in your company and your currency, which could help you save money by
exchanging currencies. Paypal accepts most of the countries which serve
credit cards or have an international branch. There are also many alternatives
for countries not accepted by Paypal to accept Paypal services for a fee. You also
have to look for the time it takes to withdraw your money to your bank account or
credit card. Paypal, Bidpay, and other american companies can transfer your money with
in 3-5 days to any major country. However, if you are in a country where it will
take weeks to transfer your money, you should look for another alternative.
Credit Card Service Integration
Integrating the credit card service to your website saves your customers time. Look for
shopping cart systems which can calculate all of that the details the customer needs,
like the shipping costs, charges, taxes, etc.
If you are selling large amount of products online and know that most of your customers
will use credit cards, then 2Checkout is a service for you. It is just like a payment
service that your customers would use like a credit card machine. There are a lot of free
and commercial shopping cart and payment systems written for the 2checkout system in all
PHP, ASP, PERL languages, like OsCommerce.
If most of your customers are using Paypal, then you can integrate Paypal into your
website using pre-made scripts - or you can design one yourself. If you are going to
use a script for Paypal, make sure you can trust the script company and that the script is
reliable. The Paypal system is easy to hack if you are not using encryption. It's
recommended that you contact a Paypal IPN Expert before integrating the service to your
website to make sure the system is safe and integrated properly.
Most of the shopping cart systems support multiple payment services like Paypal
& 2Checkout and are able to integrate more payment services. OsCommerce is one of them;
it has secure payment and it's service and is used by thousands of shopping companies all
over the world.
Website Securing & Licensing
Licensing your website and securing your payment service is required if you are going to
be promoting your business. Most people who want to purchase online prefer trusted and
secure websites. Getting a license for your website is becoming a lot easier now. Online
credit card services like Paypal offer easy to use account verification services; you can
be verified just by entering your credit card information and putting the paypal verified
logo in your website.
If you are considering to invest in a Secure license for your website then Verisign has the Solution for you.
VeriSign licenses are also another way to show your visitors how secure your website is
and they are considered to be the most secure and recommended websites available by
internet websites and Gurus.
Trusted and popular Payment Services:
Jack Freeman, DolbyDesigns